Palimpsests at Saint Catherine’s.

Richard Gray at the Atlanticwrites about a perennially interesting topic:

The library at Saint Catherine’s Monastery is the oldest continually operating library in the world. Among its thousands of ancient parchments are at least 160 palimpsests—manuscripts that bear faint scratches and flecks of ink beneath more recent writing. These illegible marks are the only clues to words that were scraped away by the monastery’s monks between the 8th and 12th centuries to reuse the parchments. Some were written in long-lost languages that have almost entirely vanished from the historical record. […]

Over five years, the researchers gathered 30 terabytes of images from 74 palimpsests—totaling 6,800 pages. In some cases, the erased texts have increased the known vocabulary of a language by up to 50 percent, giving new hope to linguists trying to decipher them. One of the languages to reemerge from the parchments is Caucasian Albanian, which was spoken by a Christian kingdom in what is now modern day Azerbaijan. Almost all written records from the kingdom were lost in the 8th and 9th century when its churches were destroyed.

“There are two palimpsests here that have Caucasian Albanian text in the erased layer,” says Michael Phelps, the director of the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library and leader of the project. “They are the only two texts that survive in this language … We were sitting with one of the scholars and he was adding to the language as we were processing the images. In real time he was saying ‘now we have the word for met’ and ‘now the word for fish.’”

Another dead language to be found in the palimpsests is one used by some of the earliest Christian communities in the Middle East. Known as Christian Palestinian Aramaic, it is a strange mix of Syriac and Greek that died out in the 13th century. Some of the earliest versions of the New Testament were written in this language. “This was an entire community of people who had a literature, art, and spirituality,” says Phelps. “Almost all of that has been lost, yet their cultural DNA exists in our culture today. These palimpsest texts are giving them a voice again and letting us learn about how they contributed to who we are today.”

“There are two palimpsests here that have Caucasian Albanian text in the erased layer,” says Michael Phelps, the director of the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library and leader of the project. “They are the only two texts that survive in this language …

But maybe “only” is hyperbole. I wondered how they could know that this is Caucasian Albanian if these are the only texts.

“There are two palimpsests here that have Caucasian Albanian text in the …

Yes, my reductio ad absurdum was to illustrate the point that we need counts, not percentages. 1000 to 1500 would be very impressive; 100 to 150 would be very good; 10 to 15 might be useful; 2 to 3 would probably not be worth reporting (not like that, anyway).

We were sitting with one of the scholars and he was adding to the language as we were processing the images. In real time he was saying ‘now we have the word for met’ and ‘now the word for fish.’”

Perhaps some people interpreted this as meaning that these were the only two words “rescued” from the palimpsests, rather than examples of what the scholars were finding among other features of the language.

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